


Take a Bow

by mll



Category: Dangan Ronpa
Genre: Dubious Consent, F/M, Mind Games, Obsession, spoilers for dr sdr2 and dr0
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2014-01-05
Packaged: 2018-01-07 15:48:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1121677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mll/pseuds/mll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kiyotaka Ishimaru, despite himself, absolutely cannot stop thinking about Junko Enoshima.</p>
<p>[Some vague SDR2 and DR0 spoilers, and endgame spoilers for DR]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take a Bow

**Author's Note:**

> I mixed and matched the titles a little bit, going with "Super High School Level" but "Moral Compass" and "Gyaru" for Junko and Ishimaru's actual talents, since that seemed the most accurate.

It wasn't that she was a rulebreaker, someone like Oowada-kun. That, he could deal with. You didn't make it to the head of the disciplinary committee without knowing a process as basic as punishment.

But Junko Enoshima? She was chaos personified.

The day Ishimaru had met her was, of course, his first day as part of the 78th class at Hope's Peak Academy. The proudest day of his life.

But when he'd entered the classroom, Enoshima-kun's sheer presence, for reasons far beyond him, had immediately overshadowed every single other person there.

She wasn't in accordance with the dress code, of course; nothing about her was. A red bow and a clip shaped like a rabbit's head stuck within huge, tentacle-like pigtails; high heeled boots, an expensive-looking cardigan over her shirt instead of a blazer—she'd introduced herself as a Super High School Level Gyaru, which Ishimaru supposed explained all that, but it was still no excuse to wear more makeup than he'd ever seen on anyone before.

When he politely confronted her after class about her manner of dress, she just laughed in his face.

Then she'd asked, “Uh-huh, but what about your boots?”.

What about them? Yes, they weren't strictly included within the dress code, but no other kind of shoes had been specified, so he'd just—

“They go up even higher on the knee than mine. Is it that they make you feel powerful, Ishimaru-kun?”

\----------------------------------

Detention had no effect on Junko Enoshima. The disciplinary committee was a big joke in itself to her. It wasn't that she disregarded school rules—oh, she was fully aware of them, probably knew the code of conduct just as well as he did—she just didn't _care_.

And she'd come up with a nickname for him by now. _Kiyo-chan_. No one had ever given him a nickname before. He couldn't remember the last time a classmate had acknowledged that he even had a first name.

It was enough to keep Ishimaru's eyes on her constantly, in hopes of catching her in the act of doing something that he would finally, _finally_ , make her regret. To elicit some kind of reaction from her beyond mocking laughter. It was like a compulsion, an itch he constantly had to scratch. A nagging voice at the back of his head, asking again and again _where is Enoshima-kun right now_?

If he heard her laugh, he'd jump in his seat and turn his head. If he saw a flash of her skirt around the corner, he'd drop whatever he was doing and follow down that hallway.

And she'd always be talking to someone else when he saw her. Her sister (who was Enoshima-kun's complete opposite; God knew how that had happened), or a fellow member of the 78th class or sometimes even one of their senpai. Clearly Ishimaru was not the only one that Enoshima-kun habitually bothered, and the thought that he was nothing special made him feel even worse somehow.

But even so, every time she caught sight of Ishimaru out of the corner of her eye, she would take the time to turn and smile at him like he was a piece of meat hanging in a window.

\----------------------------------

It was insane. He felt like a dog, pathetic and small, trailing after his owner on the sidewalk.

But when Enoshima had beckoned him to follow her one day after school, he hadn't even thought about it. He was so used to tracking her movements that it seemed normal to follow a single crook of her finger like a puppet on strings.

And, so, without a single word spoken between them, Kiyotaka Ishimaru marched behind Junko Enoshima through the hallways of Hope's Peak Academy with only the stab of high heels into the floor to punctuate their movements.

They stopped in front of the Student Council room. It was empty, but Enoshima opened the door just like she belonged there. Ishimaru was hesitant to enter at first, but when she dug her long nails ( _how did she get them so long?_ ) into his wrist, he felt as if he had no choice but to be pulled inside. It was the first time she had acknowledged his presence since beginning this ridiculous journey, after all. He should have said something, done something, slapped her hand aside. He _was_ stronger than Enoshima.

And when she closed the door behind them, he should have stopped her.

But he didn't, and he didn't push Enoshima away when she backed him up against the wall, either. He could have left, he could've walked out of that room and taken this straight to an authority, no problem. But what would any of that have accomplished?

Enoshima was still clutching his wrist, hard enough to draw blood by now, and when she leaned in towards him her breath tickled his neck.

“Kiyo-chan...”

The whisper in his ear was like a happy threat. Of what exactly Ishimaru didn't know, but he was terrified that he was about to find out. Her hands snaked around to his backside, maneuvering their way under his shirt. As Enoshima's nails scraped along his spine, whatever semblance left of any objection Ishimaru wanted to voice faded rapidly into incoherence. It felt—strange. Very strange.

Then those hands moved down. They surrounded his buttocks, and gripped them tight.

It was becoming increasingly obvious to Ishimaru what Enoshima was demanding they initiate, but his arms made way for her anyway as she began to grind up against his body. She whispered words into his ear, but Ishimaru couldn't remember all of what she'd said against the force of what felt like his brain falling to pieces.

It reminded Ishimaru of when he was first learning to write as a child. He'd tried to use his left hand to hold the pencil; that just felt natural. But every time he did, his mother would slap his wrist with a ruler. Despite the pain, he'd just kept using his left hand—he didn't know how to write with the right one, after all. It had taken him hours to finally figure out how to avoid the ruler.

And though he knew doing this sort of thing with Enoshima was terrible, against every school rule he could think of at the moment and against his basic personal integrity—he was just a three year old again, sticking out his left hand to write his name even though he knew it would hurt because that was the only thing he could think to do.

Ishimaru's fingers brushed feverishly against Enoshima's hair. Might as well find a bright side to this situation; he'd always wondered what it felt like. Of course, Enoshima's response to this gesture was to aggressively attack his mouth with her own. Ishimaru could feel her tongue groping its way down the back of his throat.

And slowly, those bony hands of hers moved from back to front, slipping inside his pants without bothering to unbutton anything. If there was ever a point of no return to what they were doing, this was it. But he couldn't talk with her lips stuck to his, and her fingers working—down there. Ishimaru didn't even know what he would say.

They were really going to do this.

Ishimaru felt wetness on his cheeks, and though he wasn't aware of having been crying, he had no doubt that they were his tears. Enoshima must have noticed this as well, because she disentangled her hot mouth from his and moved it back up to his ear again.

“Oh? Aren't you having fun, Kiyo-chan?”

He looked at her, and, giving way to her pressure, slumped down against the wall. They were half-horizontal, now; Enoshima still on top of him with one hand still in his pants and the other finally starting to unbutton his shirt.

It was a long time until they finally left the room.

\----------------------------------

Junko Enoshima threw unceasing paper at the back of his head during class. At disciplinary committee meetings, she would sneak into the back of the room and make faces until he noticed she was there. When they met in the hallways, she would throw up a facetious salute.

She had never acknowledged their time in the student council room at all, but the intent of her actions was clear—“Remember what we did?”

As if Ishimaru could ever forget how much she had him in the palm of her hand.

Oh, he'd tried. For weeks he'd driven himself insane trying to not think about Junko Enoshima, to not hear her voice or meet her eye against the onslaught of all her attention and the shame of what had happened that afternoon. He'd failed. She'd already forced her way into his consciousness a long time ago, after all.

And even if Junko never mentioned the student council room, she at least was talking to him now on a regular basis. Actual friendly (well, Ishimaru wasn't exactly the best judge of that, but still) conversation. Despite everything that had happened between them that made Ishimaru want to start crying all over again...it was nice to have someone who wanted to hear what he had to say.

The rest of the 78th class habitually ignored him—unless they were in trouble, in which case they were as nice as could be. Ishimaru was used to that of course; could at least recognize the difference between false flattery and genuine interest. He wouldn't have been much of a Super High School Level Moral Compass, otherwise.

This sort of attention was different, even if it was something awful. It was almost enough to make him forget what they'd done.

And either way, she was following Ishimaru everywhere he went now, nonsensically chattering about everything under the sun. It was only polite to reply.

During a lunch spent outside one cold afternoon, Junko had asked him about his hopes for the future, and he'd immediately gone on and on about his dream of becoming Prime Minister, of fixing his grandfather's mistakes and restoring his family name.

She hadn't exactly laughed, per se, upon hearing all that, but her silence might as well have been equivalent.

And she asked him, “You know no one cares, right?”

“H-huh?”

“About all those rules, Kiyo-chan, no one follows 'em! No one cares about what you're 'supposed' to be in this world. So why do you bother?”

Her question caught Ishimaru off guard, and he was visited yet again by that familiar sense of Junko Enoshima-induced mental blankness.

“That's just...ah...Well, Enoshima-kun, how _else_ would you live your life? What other code is there besides that of the public?” A question for a question.

She looked up at the white sky and smiled, foggy breath just barely escaping from her mouth.

“Despair”.

And that was all she said.

\----------------------------------

For how good being casual acquaintances with Junko Enoshima was beginning to seem, it wasn't always as comforting as Ishimaru was trying to convince himself it was—after all, her companionship was hardly unconditional.

The problem was that Ishimaru couldn't figure out what exactly those conditions were. There'd be days when she wouldn't leave his side, speaking to him all afternoon about things he didn't understand. Junko wouldn't even look at their other classmates on those days; it was like they didn't exist to her.

And then that great and terrible focus of hers would turn right back around, and the opposite would occur. Ishimaru would spend days or even weeks being invisible to Junko no matter what he did. Her eyes would slide right over him like an unremarkable stranger in a crowd. Despite himself, Ishimaru paid even more attention to her on those days. Multiple times he'd found himself sending her to the disciplinary committee just so she would _have_ to acknowledge him. But it was never as satisfying as he expected. Then the habit began to spread to who she _did_ talk to during those weeks; usually one of their senpai. But they had begun to not react to their punishments either, as if there was something better or more comforting to think about in the back of their heads instead.

It made him want to scream.

But eventually she would come back and start bothering him again. She always did.

\----------------------------------

A lot was beginning to happen at once. At first it was only whispers that something had happened to the student council. Then for once, people began to bring up the reserve class as if they hadn't just spent the last year pretending it didn't exist. Normally Ishimaru wouldn't have put stock in such rumors, but the fact that Junko's response to hearing all this was always some sort of cheeky grin made him reconsider. She always ended up being right, and if Junko Enoshima thought something like that was funny, well, then, there must have been some element of truth to it.

But whenever he actually asked her about what she thought was happening to Hope's Peak, she always dismissed it with a laugh; gave a noncommittal answer or changed the subject, and she knew he wouldn't soon ask again.

Yet Junko had to be involved in all this somehow. She had to be, the despair queen that she was.

He felt disgusting again that someone of his talent couldn't condemn the cause of all this chaos and rumor. But as long as she continued to deny it, continued to force obliviousness on him...well, she was his friend. His first and only, if you could even call her a friend in the first place.

The bond they had was something beyond friendship, beyond romance. Beyond anything anyone else could ever understand, but it didn't matter if anyone else did. They were just Kiyo-chan and Junko-kun stuck together for the rest of time, pushing back and forth against each other in close quarters only for him to land crying at Junko's feet every time. It was wonderful, he realized, to be so intimate with a single individual, to know their thoughts, their touch, their heartbeat. Junko's was always constituted by high-pitched racing, and she'd said the same about his, too. They were the same, as if this had been destined to happen since birth and nothing else mattered.

Ishimaru's suspicions that this was, in fact, the case, were confirmed when Junko Enoshima disappeared without warning one day.

Of course, she came back; like always at a point when Ishimaru had begun to think he didn't need her anymore. Silly, really. He wanted to hit his head against a wall for even bringing up the idea in the first place.

If the time during which Junko was gone passed second by second staring at the wall, counting all the bricks meticulously to keep himself distracted, then the aftermath of her arrival passed in a violent blink of an eye. All of a sudden their world had turned into one of violence, riots, strange bear-shaped masks—the Worst, Most Despair-Inducing Event in the History of Mankind. The very idea of such a thing happening at Hope's Peak Academy, the center of their nation's hope, offended Ishimaru down to his core. But there it was, and it was happening. Junko had said so.

To be quite honest, Ishimaru wasn't sure how much he was managing to stay above it all either. He could feel the chaos buzzing behind his eyes, burrowing its way deep into his brain. He felt it every time Junko laid eyes on him, every time she whispered in an ear that was not his, every time she ordered him to look away from the riots and keep walking. Every time she rolled her fingers up his spine and buried a hand at the nape of his neck, feeling his thick shoulders retract around her in response to being touched. A fly out of its mind, hitting its head against a light fixture.

But if despair was what the world was about to become, then who was he, the supposed embodiment of Japan's public morals, to deny it?

When they bolted metal plates to all the windows, he almost missed being able to see all the riots outside.

\----------------------------------

When the members of Super High School Level Despair flowed chaotically into a broken Hope's peak, former senpai distorted beyond recognition by despair, Ishimaru wondered for a moment why he wasn't a part of that group. Wasn't he, thanks to Junko Enoshima, a shadow of his former self as well? The Ishimaru of two years ago would have never stood by and done nothing at witnessing despair's infiltration into their nation's beacon of hope and then over every form of betrayal in the book—Junko had been planning this all along, to drive darkness into every corner of the world no matter how tightly the light was locked up. He should have been offended, horribly offended, as he watched her lips, her body, her hair and everything about her move as one to direct the growing rampage.

But the reason why he was shivering so uncontrollably with dread was because Junko was not looking at him anymore. Maybe she never would again, with the way she had shifted her entire focus onto her carnival of despair. After spending an entire year together, speaking to no one but her, dodging the strange looks from their classmates who thought it strange to see them side-by-side at all times, _as if they could ever understand what the two of them had_...this was how it would end. Tossed aside like a rag doll, disregarded without a thought like the dress code on their first day of school.

Ishimaru looked down at his boots in an escape from the scene in front of him. He hadn't bothered to polish them since the lockdown had begun—that brand of enforced authority had never impressed Junko.

And without realizing he had looked back up, without thinking about it at all, the words fell out of his mouth like spiders. “Junko-kun!”

She turned her head, and he was nearly bowled over by the sudden focus of her attention. But he just kept talking, tears in his eyes now as well.

“Please! Let me join your organization!” Ishimaru gave the deepest bow he sworn he had ever given, doubling over as if punched. “Allow me to help you bring despair to the world!” His past self was buzzing incessantly in the back of his head, but he threw it towards some even deeper recesses of the brain. None of that mattered now.

Junko quirked an eyebrow, the game of subtle rejection that she played so well. He knew how this worked.

“Huh? That's what you want?” Cajoling, disrespectful, apathetic. He was to push back earnestly, the next step of their dance. Like always.

“Nothing would make me happier, I beg you! I must be by Junko-kun's side!”

She laughed, the same cruel laugh she always gave. Ishimaru tried his hardest to suppress a smile. Junko hadn't forgotten him. Not even the entire world's despair could get in the way of what they had.

Or so he thought.

All eyes on her, Junko walked right up to Ishimaru, her face uncomfortably close. _Like in the student council room_ , he thought. She had been paying complete attention to him back then, too. Trying to make the both of them feel good. _But did you enjoy it?_ The back of his brain whispered. _Does it matter if I liked it or not?_ He didn't need to be thinking of that right now.

And, without a word, she hugged him. In all his shock, Ishimaru realized that he'd never received a hug from Junko Enoshima before. Maybe no one had. Either way, she was a surprisingly good hugger, and after a moment's hesitation he wrapped his arms around her thin waist as well. They were as close now as they'd been on that one day, except this was everything that was not. This was—tender. Junko Enoshima didn't do tender.

It became more unsettling as the hug didn't end right away. Both sets of arms remained in place and Junko's head nuzzled into his shoulder. Her hair brushed against his nose. Though Ishimaru wanted to close his eyes and feel the embrace for all it was worth, he felt strangely on edge. Something about this was wrong.

Finally, she looked up, straight at him. He couldn't look away. He never could. Junko's eyes looked kind, the most sincere he'd ever seen them. Her mouth was curled—not twisted—up into an actual smile, unlike any face he'd ever received from her before. Ishimaru's heartbeat quickened. What was happening? Was this another trick? Was she trying to draw him even further into absolute despair? He didn't know how that was possible.

“Kiyo-chan.” The nickname was one of genuine affection for once; no sign of teasing in her voice. “You know I love you, right?” His body stiffened. That sounded sincere, too.

She removed her arms from around his torso, but instead of walking away she reached toward the enormous red bow on her right pigtail. With a squeeze, she removed it; clip and all. Her hair looked strangely naked now, missing half of its adornment.

After a moment Ishimaru figured that she meant for him to take the bow from her, and he did, grasping it gingerly between his thumb and index fingers. He still didn't understand.

“Junko-kun...”

“Kiyo-chan. I want you to have this. Keep it in your pocket and close to your heart, okay?” Her hands took the bow and tucked it into his breastpocket, since his were still trembling too much to do it himself.

She kissed him on the cheek, softly and lovingly and without force. For once her lips felt nice.

“J-junko-kun?” How many times had he said her name over the years, with how many different inflexions?

“Ssh.” She put a manicured finger up to his dry lips.

“You don't belong with us.” _What?_ “Despair isn't your only option, Kiyo-chan. It never was.”

“...but _you_ were, Junko-kun.” From the moment they'd first met this ultimate despair had been destined for the both of them.

Junko shook her head. “All this time you could have been anything you wanted. You have all the hope of your entire life ahead of you. Unlike those of us who have already fallen into despair.” She gestured at the members of Super High School Level Despair behind them, but he didn't want to look. He wouldn't have been able to see them anyway through all his tears.

“No, please, Junko-kun...I've never felt anything but despair ever since I met you! _Please_!”

“Then you don't know what true despair feels like.” Junko leaned in even closer to him, so that their noses were inches apart. “Just go back to your room, Kiyo-chan. You were never involved in all this. It was never even a possibility.” And then she gave him one last kiss, on the lips this time, squeezed his hand affectionately, and left accompanied by her parade of despair and _without_ her red bow—left snug in his pocket instead.

It occured to him after the fact that he could have properly cleaned his boots with all his tears.

\----------------------------------

In all the excitement and worry of everything that had gone wrong on their first day of school at Hope's Peak Academy—a demented bear for a headmaster, horrible instructions to kill each other and heavy sheets of metal bolted to every surface imaginable—that Ishimaru didn't notice the bow at the bottom of his uniform pocket until he was undressing in his room that night, mentally exhausted beyond all comprehension.

It must have been some kind of fashion accessory, he mused as he turned it over in his hands. He certainly didn't remember taking it with him to school, wouldn't own something so contrary to dress code. Maybe one of his new classmates had stuck it in there without him noticing during all of that day's commotion? Some of them were certainly talented enough to do so. Maybe Enoshima-kun, with her thin fingers. It definitely looked like something she might wear in her hair. But why?

Ishimaru sighed and put the accessory back in his pocket—he didn't want to lose it, after all. There was no point in thinking about this or confronting any of his classmates if he didn't know anything, especially with other, much more important, worries to dwell on instead. Right now, in particular, he needed to focus on getting to sleep. If he couldn't function enough in the morning to properly herd their group together, they would never get off to a decent start in escaping their current situation.

He began to unlace his boots, shiny as the day he'd bought them.

\----------------------------------

Junko Enoshima looked down at the prostrate corpse of Kiyotaka Ishimaru, blood mixed in with his hair and leaking onto the floor. She grimaced. How despair-inducing.

It wasn't as if she had a lot of time on her hands to clean up both Yamada-kun and Ishimaru-kun's bodies before dawn broke, but there was one final bit of unfinished business left for her to take care of before that happened.

Carefully, she rolled Ishimaru-kun's body over so it would face upwards, taking care not to touch the head. The blood that had seeped into the floorboards would be hard enough to get out as it was; she didn't want to deal with accidentally getting any of it on her clothing. Luckily, most of Ishimaru-kun's uniform had remained a spotless white even after receiving a bloody, fatal blow to the head, so that wasn't something she had to worry about as she reached for his breast pocket.

She wasn't sure if finding her bow there, still nestled up against Ishimaru-kun's useless heart, was a discovery of despair or happiness, but in the end they were the same thing really.

As she had moved his body, Ishimaru-kun's eyelids had opened and his dead fish eyes were now staring up at the ceiling; bloodshot and utterly blank. Had he kept the bow there because, even after invasive brain surgery and a new best friend, he still remembered her somewhere in the back of his mind? If he had, he must have been very confused to see her dear big sister there in her stead. She smiled and shook over the possibility. The despair he must have felt!

But that wasn't possible. None of the 78th class's memories remained, she had personally made sure of that.

Junko's hands slowed to a hesitant stop as they went to bury the hairbow back into its rightful place against her skull. Although Ishimaru-kun wouldn't have remembered anything, he _had_ been hit on the head...surely it was plausible that he had remembered what the contents of his pocket meant in his last moments? Maybe he'd had enough time to remember everything. All the tears, the pushing, the nicknames, the boots...their entire obsession. She smiled. That would be _wonderful_. Dear, dear Kiyo-chan finally feeling true despair. It almost brought a tear to her eye, but she didn't want to have to reapply her mascara before morning.

Her hands began to move down from her hair and towards her chest. Junko was fairly certain that they were moving on their own, since this wasn't something she had originally planned to do. But she clipped the bow to the edge of her cardigan instead. _Keep it close to your heart_ , she had said. Those were her true feelings.

She shook her head. There was a lot of clean-up she still had to get to, not much time left to do it in, and Ishimaru-kun was still dead. What a rush.

It wasn't easy seeing through the thick fog of despair pervading the room, but at least this time it wouldn't be just hers. There was nothing quite like causing the absolute corruption of Japan's public morals. She could count that as yet another of Junko Enoshima-chan's amazing accomplishments now.

She took a deep breath in, and began to properly dispose of Ishimaru-kun's body.

 

 


End file.
